Winter riding in the Midwest

These made a big difference for me.
Could actually enjoy 15 mile rides in 40s…

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Oh and yes on the full face.
Got my tsg last winter and it was way better than just balaclavas.

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I mainly used lipos in cold conditions and never made huge tours (all under 1h) but I never had big issues with performance or range.
I did have issues once with my drone but it was a different story as the battery came out of a cold environment.
So let’s assume I sit at home, charge my pack at home at idk 25-28 degree C than go for a ride at -10 degree. The ride is fast with terrain, no big stops. Means the cells would heat up and hold the hole pack st maybe 5-10 degree Celsius during the hole ride. Why should cells perform worse at this temperature than at 45-50 degree when the outside temperature is higher?
Would love to hear your professional thoughts about my hypothesis @Battery_Mooch :smile:

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As others said before a face mask is highly recommended and I wear my snowboard goggles as well. Super helpful especially if it’s starting to snow :sweat_smile:
Besides that I just wear winter closes with my protection under.
Don’t use the trampa wand when it’s cold. That alu case will froze your fingers in no time as minimum if you need to have the tips of your fingers free from gloves for the remote like I :sweat_smile:

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I use these when its really bad here, I have gone out in -3 , feet start to go numb and ice over

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Professional? Moi? Nah…not a materials scientist or electrochemist or battery engineer. Just a guy who tests a lot of cells and reads a lot. :grin:

Packs that don’t get cold won’t suffer the effects experienced by packs that get cold. “Cold” can be a pretty subjective term though.

But a pack with its cells at 45°C-50°C will have lower internal resistance, resulting in less voltage sag when being used, compared to a pack with its cells at 5°C-10°C. This means more voltage to the ESC and/or more run time before the pack drops to the cutoff voltage. Whether the difference will be noticed or not during a ride is subject to a huge number of variables. But the difference is there.

You’ve had your pack stay at under 10°C when being used in -10°C weather? I am surprised that the packs were running that cold. Are the exposed to the outside air or in a sealed box/enclosure?

Being at room temp before you rode, and (probably?) being in an enclosure insulated under tape and fish paper, the cells would have started rising up above room temp quickly. It doesn’t seem like the cells would be influenced much at all by the outside temps while being used. I would have thought that the cells were at least warm during your cold weather ride.

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Is there a point where it turns into the other direction? I thought the warmer the cells get, the worse is their performance.

About the temp of my packs I can’t say for sure 10degree Celcius as I did not measure the temperature. Maybe more maybe less but for sure not cold but also not as warm as in the summer. It was more an assumption to explain myself why I do not see a big difference in range and performance even in cold weather.

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Li-ion cells perform better when around 40°C-45°C vs room temp or colder, due to their lower internal resistance. R/C racers will often warm their packs up before a race with a very fast charge. Some cells even continue to improve a little more all the way up to around 60°C.

But, these higher temperatures accelerate the aging of the cells and will result in shorter overall life. At around 70°C-80°C some materials inside the cell actually start to decompose resulting in exothermic reactions that, if not stopped, will lead to the cell self-destructing (“thermal runaway”).

At above 45°C or so the internal resistance doesn’t drop much more but the huge voltage sag from running them at high current levels means your run time will be much shorter. This isn’t really a temperature issue though. The reduced performance is due to the voltage sag.

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I am not sure this is the best place for this, if not apolagies, we all know i am kinda a dumb ass.
Regarding winter riding, i ride no mater what unless the sky is crying.
I obviously ripped active heating elaments out of heated jackets and wired my armor and my Aerostich riding suit, but the thing i use that makes the most diffrence is my RS Taichi windproof riding suit. i had this from motorcycle track days. It will make a perforated leather suit feel not perforated. for the money it has zero bulk breathes well. i have the first gen so i cant comment on thenew black suit, mine is blue, make sure you dont buy the suit liner by mistake,it has no warmth value at all. RS taichi uses Japanese sizes, for refrence i am just shy of 6’2" and 200lbs, wide shoulders(46),waiste like a girl (31) and i wear a 3L

now if one of you savy fellows can make a heated remote or heated remote sleve, ill buy it. I have my Hillbilly wrist guard/gloves wired for heat, but a warm remote,however silly would be nice. i have lots of pins,screws and plates in my hands(recycling value!) so my hands hurt when cold.
i hope this helps someone out. also im not relly trying but i have textile and leather suits id sell really cheap ,particularly if you are in the sf bay area.

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yes i live in california and think 28 degrees is cold on a esk8. respect to those of you braving real cold. i have no body fat,(18% )so my flacko ass gets COLD.
The hispanics at work call me “loco flcko weddo” i dont speak Spanish but im told this means “Highly respected fellow”

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This guy is a game changer. Remove ice scraper from ice scraper mitt and sew/hot glue the seam back closed. Super easy to chuck a hot hands packet in. Shouldn’t be hard to toss some heating element wire in there with a battery pack either.

I’m telling you, this is the best way to hold a remote when it’s freezing out. Plus you look hilarious with giant mittens on while skating.

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So I’ve been searching high and low for multiple years for something that beats the ice scraper solution and this year I reached out to the folks who make pogies for bike handlebars, ski poles, and rowing / kayak oars. If you’ve ever used a pogie in cold weather, you know how nothing really beats them for maintaining warmth while retaining dexterity in freezing temps, but they need a pole or rod to anchor themselves to. For a pogie to work on your hand without a bar, it would need to cinch around your wrist. One of the manufacturers (Bar Mitts) got back to me and told me if I sent over some photos of my hand around the remote with some rulers in the photo for reference, he could do a custom. I replied with some photos using a Hoyt puck and he’s going to give it a shot. I honestly don’t care if it’s janky – if it performs as well as decent pogies do (and Bar Mitts are good) this could be it.

I’ve tried a couple different solutions, including modifying hand warmers / muffs, doing extensive searches for “thumbless mittens”, and trying to find a high end shell jacket that you can shove your hand into (usually via pocket access to the insulation layer) without it being too uncomfortable; nothing’s been too promising. I’ll let people know if it works out.

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Hahaha that’s too funny! I actually explored the handlebar covers this year as a solution and have them in my loft just waiting to be sewn up. Keep us posted, that would be awesome to have.

Ummm just put a piece of enriched uranium inside your puck :nerd_face:

Don’t worry if all your pics start turning fuzzy…

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Just want to say, I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and it works so well. Hold an ice scraper in your front hand. That’s it. Super simple. No sewing or DIY needed. My remote hand doesn’t get as cold if I keep it behind me. Sometimes I will wear a super thin cotton glove on the back hand when it gets really cold. But usually no glove on the back hand.

Thanks @Venom121212 for the initial idea

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Yeah the ice scraper is currently the gold standard to beat. I haven’t found anything quite as effective. The pogies are more to streamline it a bit and use (hopefully) stronger / lighter / warmer / more windproof materials.

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So it arrived early! A “bar mitt” for esk8. This was quickly put together based on a request to Bar Mitts. Since it has no official name, I’m just going to refer to it as the esk8 oven mitt, for obvious reasons:


It’s pretty simple – a pogie, but sealed on all ends (other than where you insert your hand of course) and a velcro cinch that closes around your wrist. The velcro will attach to any part of the mitt – it doesn’t have to loop back onto itself.


Here’s a shot with my hand on top of it, wearing a Flatland 3D fingerless glove and holding a Hoyt puck. There’s a good amount of room in there. I could almost completely flare out my fingers.


The interior is red, with a little fabric handle at the very end for you to grab if you need leverage on the mitt; this helps to prevent the fabric from riding up your hand as you cinch it down.

For reference, here’s my hand with a couple of tape measures for reference (it’s what the Bar Mitts folks used to get the oven mitt sized correctly):


Weight for the oven mitt is 113 grams. The Flatland fingerless glove is 85 grams. The Arc’teryx mitten below is 100 grams (but also ridiculously light for what it is; typical mittens are heavier).

In terms of looks it’s not going to win any beauty contests. However for those of you in the Midwest, you understand that the second winter shows up (and I’m talking real winter, not “oh it’s so cold in the 40s!”) fashion pretty much flies out the window and functionality reigns supreme. So how well does it work?

Pretty damn well. I’ve had previous experience with Bar Mitts and they’re no joke. I’ve ridden my bike in 10º weather with blasting winds shoving the wind chill below 0, and my hands, without any gloves or liners, were warm. Not slightly cold but tolerable, but actually toasty warm. These are made of the same material (neoprene) though without inner fleece liners.

I took it out today, though it wasn’t too cold. Actual reading outside my door was 40ºF, and I was averaging 20MPH on a 30 minute ride after dark. That puts the wind chill at speed at around 31ºF, colder if there was actual wind that added on (which there was depending on direction). Zero wind was penetrating into the oven mitt. Tactile feel of the puck was excellent. The entire time my hand was VERY warm – borderline too warm. An adjustable vent would address this, but that’s in a “nice to have” category; if it was any warmer, I would switch to normal gloves. On a tactile scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being bare hands and 1 being trying to use a remote while wearing Arc’teryx Fission SV mittens one size too big (which I own and will use on my non-control hand), these were a 9.

If you have proper cold weather gear, you probably have shells and midlayers with their own wrist cinchers. Here’s what it looks like with a Fjallraven Keb Eco-Shell sealed against the mitt, as well as a Fjallraven Expedition Pack Down jacket (which I’ll sometimes combine depending on conditions and temperature).


At this point cold air isn’t even going to drift in. Combine this with a decent gaiter, tech pants and trouser shells like this Fjallraven Bergtagen shell in Hokkaido Orange (what can I say, the Fjallraven stuff rocks), along with some hardcore wind-proof calf socks, and you’re going to be a portable, rolling warming station down to some extreme temperature and wind chills.

How does this compare to the ice scraper? I would put this a two notches above it. The ice scraper is great, but they’re usually not made of the kind of material you want to be doing active things in. Depending on which type you go with, a number of them aren’t very windproof or even wind resistant; the Bar Mitt oven mitts are basically a wall against the wind and the neoprene should stand up to a beating. Basically quality is all over the place and hard to predict for ice scrapers, but the esk8 oven mitt is basically a known quantity.

Finally, if you’ve ever used mittens before in any activity, you know that you have to carefully consider the order in which you toss on your gear. For obvious reasons, once you put the oven mitt on, you’ve essentially lost a hand. If you’re tossing a mitten on your other hand you’re now about as externally agile with your hands as a bear with anesthetized paws.

Price was $50 for the single oven mitt. Not the cheapest, but it’s in-line with how pogies generally run and this was entirely bespoke.

Pros:

  • Warmest solution I’ve run across
  • No significant impact on using control surfaces
  • Has room for layering other gloves; you could easily put on any combo of electric warming gloves, liners, full gloves, safety gear, etc, and still have it fit well
  • Has enough room for dropping in warming packets or a couple edibles or whatever
  • Makes you want to ride in cold weather

Cons:

  • The velcro cinch strap is functional, but not the most user friendly (hint: grab the inner handle while securing it and it’ll be fine
  • You will have to carefully consider order of operations in terms of putting on gear; more than likely this will go on last, or second to last with the other glove / mitten, so all your stuff needs to be squared away. This includes things like putting your phone in your pocket, flipping on a visbility light, and/or making sure all your zippers are set. Not really a con specific to the oven mitt, but putting on here.
  • You will possibly look like a convict who escaped while being restrained and feel like all you can do with your hands is bat a bunny around

Nice to haves:

  • Fleece lining for luxury feeling purposes
  • Lots of room inside, but no actual pockets to stash things (some pogies have this)

Conclusion:
I haven’t had time to give it any kind of longevity test, but as of this point it’s definitely worth it.

I mentioned in the other post that I reached out to other manufacturers; we’ll see if any of the others ones get back to me.

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This is awesome,I’m currently using a electric heated neck gaitor I closed both ends,then it has a zippered pocket,I cut through that to put my hand in to it, I added snaps to it and my riding suit as the Velcro wasn’t working. It’s not perfect but it works, credit to @Venom121212 for the inspiration. Rides are so much better. 1 of my boards still has thumb control,my thumb in the cold, well we aren’t getting on the brakes very fast.

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I ride in Chicago when cold outside. It is not so much the temperature, but it is other factors like wind, moisture, etc. I can usually ride when it is 35 degrees or above and SUNNY. I just wear my snowboarding clothes. However, the only issue I have problems with is my right glove. I need to find a glove that is thin enough where I can feel the remote, but still warm enough so my fingers don’t get cold. I like the mitt idea on this post and I might try something like that this winter.

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